How do you define "online magazine?" What kinds of content do online magazines produce? Who's reading them? And what kinds of business models do they operate under? To try and answer some of these questions, the Deparment of Canadian Heritage has commissioned Nordicity, a digital media consulting firm, "to conduct a study to better understand digital activities in magazine and newspaper publishing in order to inform future policy analysis and program development."

The study will focus on online-only publicationss, said a Nordicity analyst who is doing research for the study. While the DCH has done research into websites published in conjuction with print magazines, it has not as yet collected any information on digital-only publishing.

Nordicity will be conducting interviews with 15-20 online magazine publishers to gather information on both content and business practices, information that will then be aggregated and relayed to the DCH, in order to the help the federal ministry develop programs for online magazines as part of the new Canada Periodical Fund.

As part of the study, Nordicity is compiling a database of Canadian online publishers. The list isn't a formal registry, but part of a broader data-gathering exercise.

All digital magazine or newspaper publishers that would like to participate in this process by being included in a digital publishers database can send an e-mail to info@nordicity.com, with a link to the publication’s website.